Moments and Various Events
by writewhatyouwantto
Summary: Sometimes moments are big, and sometimes they're just little things that can bring people closer together. Sometimes they are a massive event in somebody's life - sometimes they're lost. Sometimes, though, they're so small nobody even notices them until the very end. But, they are always important.
1. A Forgettable Encounter in Clyde's Bar

**Prologue - A Forgettable Encounter in Clyde's Bar**

It was hard for her to count the number of empty glasses lined up in a disorderly row on the bar. The number of them kept fluctuating, which Jess thought was very indecisive of them. Her head felt like a cloud had decided to move inside it, and it was fogging up all her senses.

"You okay there?"

The voice made her jump in her stool. It teetered on the back legs as she momentarily flailed, however a firm hand grabbed at her arm and pulled up back upright. She looked up, and two identical men where standing in front of her, both wearing the exact same expression. The men laughed nervously. "I probably shouldn't have served you all those drinks, should I?" they joked, their lips moving in synchronisation. Jess frowned.

"How many of you are there?"

The men laughed. "I'll get you some water." They walked a few feet away, then returned a moment or so later and set down a glass brimming with a clear liquid in front of her. Jess drank it eagerly, then spat it out. She pointed her finger as straight as she could at the bartender.

"This is not vodka," she slurred. The bartender frowned.

"What?"

"You! You disappoint me, sir," she yelled, however when she tried to stand up and storm off the movement of the room refused to let her move more than a few feet. She felt an arm go around her waist just before she hit the ground.

"Woah!" the voice said. "Okay, let's sit you down somewhere a bit lower."

The bartender guided her to a booth at the back of the bar and helped her sit down. "Stay there, ok? My shift ends in a half hour, I'll check on you then," he told her, his face stern. She winked at him.

"Whatever you say, sailer," she drawled, tipping an imaginary sailer hat at him. He made an odd face at her that she could only describe as looking like a turtle before placing her glass of water on the table and walking off. She swung her legs up onto the long booth. "Hey, does your boat want to dock in my harbour?"

She sipped at her water for the next half an hour. She knew standing up wasn't really an option, and as her brain cleared by the minute she realised she wanted to stay and wait for the bartender to come back. After a long time during which she thought she'd fallen asleep at least once, the man came up to her booth. She studied him as he approached her. He was wearing a flannel shirt that appeared to have had more than one drink spilled on it that night, and his short brown hair looked as if it hadn't ever been brushed. The scruff on his face was attractive, though. Actually he was all round attractive. The moment she thought that she cursed herself. She had a boyfriend!

"Feeling better?" he asked her. She smiled at him. He had a nice face in a grumpy, mean sort of way. A moment too late she realised she was still smiling at him. She quickly looked away and took another gulp of water.

"Yeah, I'm, uh...I'm sorry," she offered, her tone questioning. The bartender slipped into the booth.

"For what?"

She made a face. "For being drunk on a Tuesday night,"

"It's Wednesday," he corrected her. She took another gulp of the water.

"You're really just proving my point, bartender," she giggled, leaning back in her seat. "I'm also sorry for drinking about half of your tequila stock. I think. Actually I'm not so sure I mind about that. I will tomorrow, _'cos I'm gonna have a hangover_!" she sang the last words. His eyes widened in surprise. "I sing," she told him.

"Yeah, no kidding," the bartender muttered. Then he cleared his throat. "And don't worry about the tequila. Selling that stuff to people is kind of what we're here for."

She nodded at his words. "Yeah, when life kicks you in the ass we come to bars and drink, right?"

He laughed, though she thought it was more a bitter, sad laugh than anything else. "You're damn right," he agreed.

She looked at him for a second. "So why do you go to bars and drink?" she asked him.

"I work here, and I haven't been drinking. Tonight," he tacked on as an afterthought. She chuckled.

"No, but I mean how are you? I don't get the feeling many people ask the bartender that."

He frowned. "They don't," he agreed. "But no offence, I don't know you and I don't really want to talk about my problems with you."

"I understand," she shrugged, taking another sip of her water. "But have you ever heard of King Midas?"

The bartender frowned. "What?" he asked incredulously, folding his arms across his chest and leaning forwards. Jess smiled at him.

"Well, there was this guy, called King Midas, and after he pissed off some guy he got given these donkey ears."

"Donkey ears?"

"_Eee aww, eee aww,_" she brayed, holding her hands up to her head in the shape of ears. She checked his face to make sure he was listening. He was making that turtle face at her again. She took that as a good sign. "He was so embarrassed that he always wore this hat over the ears to cover it up, and he wore this hat all the time, but when his hairdresser came he saw the ears. King Midas told him not to tell anybody, but the hairdresser couldn't keep the secret, so he dug a hole in the ground and whispered it to the hole."

The bartender was still looking at her like she was drunk. Which she was anyway, but she felt it was beside the point. "What?" he sighed, folding his arms.

Jess looked at him sympathetically. "I could be your hole in the ground, if you want to talk."

The man laughed. "Try me after a drink or three."

"Okay. Here's three beers on me," she grinned, holding out a bunch of dollars to him. The bartender frowned.

"I am so going to regret this..." he muttered, rolling his eyes. He took the money and went up to the bar.

An hour later, when six beer bottles and a thrice-refilled glass of whisky stood devoid of their contents on the table, the bartender finally began to talk, albeit in a slightly slurred voice.

"So my girlfriend dumped me," he told her.

"I'm sorry," she grimaced at him, taking a swig from her second beer. The cloud in her head feeling was beginning to return to her.

"She's amazing, she's like so amazing, and tomorrow I'm gonna call her and be like 'you made a huge mistake, 'cos I just won the lottery and I'm stinking rich,' and she'll be all independent at first, saying how money's only a material form of Satan or whatever, but then she'll realise that she totally wants to sleep me again, and it will be amazing."

"The relationship?"

"The sex," he shook his head. He gulped at the beer bottle in his hand, then grunted. "Actually the sex was never amazing. So I guess it has to be the relationship."

"Did you love her?" Jess asked him.

"I don't believe in love. I think it's stupid, and people in it are stupider 'cos they're too stupid to know that what they're in is stupid and a lie."

Jess laughed. "Want to know a secret?"

"Yes. No. I don't know. Is it a big one? I don't like responsibility."

"I don't think she was the one for you, bartender!" she hissed dramatically, before bursting into laughter. He made the face again.

"What are you talking about, of course she is!" he muttered. Jess shook her head.

"Like, I'm with my boyfriend now, and he's totally great and I...love him. I believe in love, and if you don't, don't you think that means you've never felt it?" she asked him, sipping her drink.

"I've felt love!" he yelled.

"What does it feel like?" she asked him. He looked at her like she was stupid.

"It feels like..." he leaned forwards towards her. His mouth was open for a second before he started talking. "Like you want to buy a beer with her."

"Wrong."

"Like you want to eat a dinner with her in a place other than the Drive-Thru."

"Nope."

"Like you want sleep together for more than twenty minutes."

"_Eh ergh,_" she said, making the noise of a buzzer.

"Well, if you're so smart, why don't you tell me what it feels like?" he yelled.

"Love is passion, obsession, someone you can't live without. I say, fall head over heels. Find someone you can love like crazy and who will love you the same way back. How do you find them? Well, you forget your head, and you listen to your heart. And I'm not hearing any heart. Cause the truth is, honey, there's no sense living your life without this. To make the journey and not fall deeply in love, well, you haven't lived a life at all. But you have to try, cause if you haven't tried, you haven't lived."

Nick was silent for a moment. Then he scowled. "That's from 'Meet Joe Black' you ninny!"

Jess burst of laughing. "You called me a ninny!"

"If you think love is so great then what are you doing here talking to me?" the bartender yelled. Jess raised her eyebrows at him.

"Um. Because, my boyfriend and I had a fight while I was PMS-ing,"

"Urgh."

"And I needed to find my own hole in the ground to talk to," she finished. The bartender looked up at her. They were quiet for a moment.

"You have really big eyes, anybody ever told you that?" he said, suddenly.

"Yeah, they have."

"Like a fly."

"Nobody's actually said that one before," she laughed once. Then she sighed, continuing. "I wanted to get in my car and drive someplace where I'd be lost, get really drunk in a bar where I didn't know anyone, and I wanted to pour my guts out to a random stranger. So, mission accomplished!" she rolled her eyes, taking a sip of her beer. The bartender looked at her for a moment.

"I wanted to get drunk, call my ex stupid names and set her garbage bins on fire. Instead I only did the first one, cause I ran into you."

Jess laughed, nodding her head. "I should probably get back. I think I'm sober enough to walk to a friend's house, it's not far."

The bartender looked surprised. "Really? You were pretty hammered, why don't you stay?"

She shook her head. "I'm gonna be fine. I mean, I'm definitely not going to remember any of this tomorrow morning, bartender, but I'm okay for now."

"Do you want to know my name?"

The question was unexpected to both of them. The bartender looked surprised he even said it. Even so, Jess' answer was quick.

"A hole in the ground doesn't have a name," she shrugged, smiling in a teasing way at him.

"Unless it's Doug. Like 'dug', get it? Like a hole?" the bartender said.

"Are you sure you're okay to get home?" she laughed, looking at the drunk man in front of her.

He waved a hand in the air. "As long as I've got my moustache I'll be fine."

"You don't have a moustache."

"Damn it," he frowned, stroking his bare upper lip. Jess laughed.

"It was nice meeting you, Hole in the Ground."

The bartender looked up at her thoughtfully. "You too."

Jess hesitated, then curtsied to him. The bartender burst out laughing.

"What was that?" he chortled. Jess joined in laughing.

"Spur of the moment, Hole in the Ground."

They looked at each other for a moment, as their laughter died down. Blue eyes met brown.

The cloud was suddenly back in Jess' mind, however the daze she was feeling this time...she was almost positive that it was for a different reason. She felt the air between them heat up, and her pulse began racing. Electricitycrackled, and notjustfrom the dodgy lights hanging from the ceiling.

The bartender looked at her, and could swear the air in front of him was a glass of beer, bubbling and fizzing over at the top into a big foamy bubble, clouding up both vision and inhibitions. He could hear the crackling of popping bubbles between them, or maybe it was just from behind the bar. After a moment the girl smiled, pushed her dorky glasses further up her nose and turned away.

"Hey, what happened in the end?" he called out, desperate for something to say. The girl turned back to face him.

"In the end of what?" she asked, smiling a little nervously.

"King Midas," the bartender grinned. "What happened?"

Jess laughed. "Umm, I think everyone found out about the donkey ears."

"Really?" he frowned. "Doesn't that kinda defeat the purpose of the whole story?"

The girl shook her head, then suddenly grabbed the top of a bench to steady herself. "Not really," she shrugged, rubbing her temple. He could tell she was going to have one heck of a hangover tomorrow. "The hairdresser just had to tell someone. It wasn't his fault everyone found out anyway. I think there are some things that don't have to be secrets."

The bartender nodded slowly at her. "I think I know what you're saying, but I _am_ super drunk right now."

Jess laughed. "G'night, Hole in the Ground."

"G'night," he said, watching her turn towards the door again. He looked down at the table for a second. He realised he didn't want the night to end that way. He wanted to grab her and kiss her senseless - but that might be the whisky talking.

"My name's..." he called after her, but he just caught sight of her billowing ebony hair sweeping out the door, and a millisecond later she was gone. He rolled his eyes at his own stupidity, and looked back at the table. He had lost another amazing girl, a girl so amazing he'd felt more of a connection with her in just one night that in years with Caroline. He didn't even know her name. He only knew that he wouldn't remember her tomorrow, and that she wouldn't remember him. He laughed again quietly at his stupidity.

"Hey Nick, you mind helping me close up?" Big Bob yelled from over the bar. Nick sighed.

"Why not?" he muttered.


	2. The Hats Invaded the Loft

**The Hats Invaded the Loft**

The moment Nick opened the front door he knew something was wrong. Some girly smell was wafting through the humid air of the loft, leeching its way into his nose, the first warning. The second warning was that he could hear Cece in the kitchen calling out to Jess. The hot model friend had come over - he made a mental note to alert Schmidt.

The third and final warning was that Jess was sat on the normally brown, spacious sofa, submerged in crocheted hats.

"No, no, Jess what have you done?" he exclaimed, fearing the hats would multiply. She blinked her creepily huge eyes at him.

"Hey, Nick! Cece was given all these hats by this guy she did a shoot for, so she gave them to me!" Jess explained happily.

"Put them in your room, I am _begging _you!" he sighed. "Look, Jess, I know you haven't been here long, but us guys need our guy space, no knitted hats allowed."

"Crocheted," Jess corrected.

"There isn't a difference to me."

Cece paraded into the living room area holding two cups of herbal tea. "Oh, please, cut her some slack! Besides, they're only going to be here until tomorrow, right Jess?" she said, sitting down and sweeping one tanned leg over the other in a naturally sensual movement.

Jess beamed. "My school's having a clothes drive tomorrow afternoon, to send to kids in Africa, so these are getting sent off to people in need."

Nick rolled his eyes. "Fine, but can you keep them in your room?"

"I am. There's just so many of them!" Jess laughed, holding up her arms as if in helplessness. "I mean, I'm already wearing five, so no more actually fit on my head."

"What do you mean, you _are _keeping them in your room?" Nick asked suspiciously. Jess shrugged, holding a hat out to Cece, who shook her head firmly at the offer.

He trod carefully over to her bedroom door, the girly scent growing stronger and ever more saccharine. Tentatively, he reached for the door handle and turned out, feeling as though he were in a horror movie and was going into the dreaded basement.

For a moment the sight before him rendered him speechless. It was beyond horrifying.

"Oh for the love of..." he sighed, exasperated, as he entered what was clearly the Mad Hatter's lair. For hats were strewn across the bed, piled high in the closet, spilling out of the drawers, littered across the floor in a perturbing array of pinks and lilacs. "Argh!" he groaned, bending down and bashing the hats under her bed. "So many freaking hats! What is wrong with the world today?" he ranted, scooping the hats up and cramming them into Jess' already overflowing closet. As he stepped towards the closet with another armful of hats, he slipped in what appeared to be another hat. The mass of woolly things he'd been holding flew high into the air as he collapsed on the floor, and he barely had time to hold his hands up to his face before the pounced on him, like incredibly soft, light and docile lions. One by one the unholy creations fell on him like marshmallows being sprinkled on a trifle. He heard footsteps running into the room and he thrashed like a fish out of the water underneath the knitted mess.

"Nick!" Jess exclaimed.

"Seriously, how did you manage to do that?" he heard Cece mutter, her tone disengaged and slightly mocking. He pictured her examining her nails as she said the words.

He felt a small pair of hands brushing away the numerous items that had landed on him, and gradually his vision cleared as the hats fell to his side. Jess was kneeling next to him as she brushed off the few remaining hats, her hair tickling him and smelling vaguely of coconut. He swore to himself that he did not like it.

"Jess, those hats are a death trap!" he shouted as he sat up. "Why would someone give you so many hats?"

"Nobody else from the shoot wanted them," came Cece's voice, and from the shape of the sound he could tell she was smirking.

"They're a freaking girly death trap of knitted nightmares!" he

"Nick, I've met tons of weird guys, but you are definitely the first to refer to crocheted hats as a death trap," sighed Cece , overseeing the debacle. Jess began pushing all the hats into a corner of the room.

"Yeah, how did you bury yourself in hats, Nick?" she asked as she turned back to him, her eyes sparkling and inquisitive.

"It was bound to happen, those hats are demons," he groaned, shaking one off his arm. "Are they scented?"

"Yeah, with lavender," Jess laughed, putting her hands on her hips. Nick sighed, and let himself fall back onto the floor in surrender. He could feel Jess' eyes on him.

"And with that I'm leaving you to your strange new life," Cece sighed, bending down to hug Jess once before she walked out of the room. "Make sure he isn't attacked by the scarf I lent you," she called out before the door snapped shut behind her. Jess giggled as she sat cross legged on the floor.

"Scarves are more plausible than hats, you have to admit," she teased. Nick rolled his eyes and climbed back onto his feet.

"Whatever, Jess, just please keep those things in your room," he groaned. Her face fell.

"Fine, I'll hide the hats," she mumbled, disappointed.

"Thank you," he muttered, trudging out of her room. He heard some shuffling behind him.

"Hey Nick?" she called out immediately. Something in her tone, teasing and playful made him slightly fearful. Hesitantly he turned to look at her, and suddenly felt a mass of wool being thrust on his head. He cried out, tugging the hat off immediately whilst Jess laughed with glee.

"It's not funny!" he told her, pointing a finger at her, not feeling angry at all.

"I assure you sir, it is," she said with a wink, putting on a strange accent.

"Whatever," he said, rolling his eyes - he couldn't stop himself, however, from chuckling slightly. As he turned to walk out of her room one again, this time in a far brighter mood, his thoughts were bubbling with crocheted hats and the annoying affinity he thought he may now have developed for them.


	3. Things' were Discussed with Roommates

**A/N Hi to anybody reading this. Would've updated sooner, but since it's been Christmas I've been a bit busy. I got a really lovely message from LenaGuffi that made me want to kept posting, and I'd like to thank her here for it. Also, I'm not going to explicitly state when these moments are taking place, I'm just going to leave it up to you to interpret. If you really want to know when it's supposed to be though, you can ask and I'll tell. Thanks for reading!**

* * *

**'Things' Were Discussed with the Roommates**

"Damn, she's hot," Winston muttered to himself, moments after Cece had closed the door the bathroom. Jess had invited her over, however as a result of being on after-school-detention duty, she was running late and the guys were left with Cece all on her own. Not that they objected.

Schmidt jumped up, startles. "What makes you say that, I mean why, we know she's hot, why would you just bring it up like that, are you trying to tell us something, Winston?" he rambled, looking uncomfortable. Nick frowned, confused, while Winston chuckled uneasily.

"Chill, man! Just commenting," he shrugged, drinking a bit of his beer. Schmidt blinked a few times at him, before quickly sitting down on the sofa.

"I'm chill, bro," he mumbled. "I'm chill _all day_."

"Shut up before you have to put money in the jar," Nick warned him.

"Seriously though, she's gorgeous," Winston sighed.

"Jeez, stop pointing it out, Winston, God!" Schmidt cried.

"Schmidt, what is up with you today?" Nick asked, confused.

"Nothing," Schmidt answered instantly. Both men watched Schmidt for a moment, before returning their attention to the Chicago Bulls on the television.

"Ok, I got a question," Winston said suddenly a few seconds later. He was grinning broadly. "If you had to choose between Cece," he paused, to let the option sink in, "or _Jess_, who would you choose?"

Nick spluttered, shocked. "What?" he laughed.

"Come on, I mean she was a mess when she first moved in, but you have to admit she's pretty hot," Winston pointed out.

"Yeah, but in a competition between Jess, the teacher, and Cece, the model, there _is _no competition, am I right?" Schmidt laughed, holding up his hand.

"I don't know," Winston shrugged. "I mean, Cece's super hot and everything, but Jess is hot in a different way."

"We really shouldn't talk about this, it's weird," Nick muttered under his breath, keeping his eyes firmly trained on the television screen.

"No, I just mean in theory," Winston explained quickly. "If you didn't know either of them - didn't know that Jess sings to herself a lot, or...plays the triangle when she's on the toilet..."

"Make your point," Nick prompted him. Winston shook his head as if to snap himself out of the daydream.

"Right. If you didn't know either of them, you just saw them in a bar, who would you buy a drink for?"

"I don't know," Nick muttered.

"Ok, Schmidt?"

"I guess, I'd have to go for..._sehsay_," he mumbled.

"What?"

"Cece," Schmidt repeated, slightly louder. He was flushed from the top of his head to the base of his neck.

"I am so uncomfortable," Nick muttered.

"Sure. I think I'd have to go for Cece too. No disrespect to Jess," Winston added quickly, ignoring his roommates comment.

"Nick?"

Nick looked at both his roommates uncomfortably. "Should we really talk about this?"

"Oh, you don't think that they do the same about us?" Schmidt laughed.

"They do?" asked Nick incredulously.

"They're _women_. It's one of their basic needs, like food or air. It's their sustenance," Schmidt explained.

"Is that a jar?" Winston asked quietly.

"I think we can let that one slide."

"They have probably talked about this so many times they can't even keep track of how many times they've picked me!" Schmidt laughed.

"_And_ that's a jar," Winston sighed.

"Jar, Schmidt," Nick agreed. Schmidt rolled his eyes and reached behind the sofa to put a dollar in the overflowing jar.

"Hey, what makes you say they picked you?" Winston asked, pointing a finger at Schmidt as he settled into his position on the couch again.

"Uh, common sense, Winston?" Schmidt said obnoxiously. "I mean look at this," he laughed.

"Don't take off your shirt, don't take off your shirt..." Nick begged quietly, as Schmidt pulled his top off to reveal his barely-there abs. "Damn it," he groaned.

"Who wouldn't want a piece of this?" Schmidt smirked, tensing his stomach.

"Me, for one," Winston said. "And I dunno, I don't think Jess or Cece would go for it."

"We wouldn't go for what?" came a voice, and the guys jumped at the sight of Cece walking into the living room. She raised her eyebrows at the sight of topless Schmidt.

"Cece, would you please explain how incredibly attractive women like Jess and yourself find," he swept a hand down his bare upper torso, "this?"

"Jar."

"Yeah, I'm gonna have to pass," she announced. Schmidt looked slightly disheartened.

"Have you and Jess ever talked about if you had to pick one of us, who you'd pick?" Winston asked nonchalantly. Cece frowned.

"Yeah, no. Why, have you ever chosen between us?"

"No!" all three men said simultaneously.

"Guys, play it cool!" Schmidt hissed. Cece regarded them for a moment before speaking.

"Ok, look, I don't give a rat's ass who you've picked, but if you ever do this again I will break your balls," she warned them, her voice dropping practically an octave. Schmidt and Winston instantly crossed their legs, however seemingly unable to stop himself, Schmidt winked at her. Cece rolled her eyes at Schmidt, before spinning on her heels and walking into Jess' bedroom, her hair swaying behind her like it did on those girls in the shampoo adverts. Which, Nick realised, she probably was.

"Hey, who were you going to pick, Nick?" Winston asked, smirking a little.

"Dude!" Schmidt hissed, pressing his legs even more firmly together. "She can hear you!"

"Nick never made his choice, it doesn't count," Winston laughed. "So?"

"I feel really uncomfortable doing this," Nick groaned. Winston's eyes widened, though the smile remained on his face.

"You pick Jess, don't you?" he grinned.

"Ok, I don't _pick _anybody!" Nick protested, relatively calmly. He stood up to retreat into his room. "This is a stupid game and you're stupid for playing it!"

Suddenly the front door opened, and a flurry of black skirt and green spotty top attached to a mass of dark brown curls stumbled through it, laden with what appeared to be approximately twenty miniature cardboard models of the Earth.

"Hey guys," Jess panted. "I just...ran...all the way from school," she said, breathing hard. "Cece said she was already here, so I ran." She stopped, and looked at the guys, who were all wearing identical expressions of awkwardness. "What were you talking about?" she asked.

"Sports," they all said straightaway. Jess paused, then smiled at them.

"Ok. Hey, Cece, I'm here!" she called out, walking towards her room. The moment the door closed behind her, Nick felt relief wash over him in a surge of colossal proportions.

"So, Jess?"

Nick groaned. "I told you I don't pick either of them."

"But you have. You've chosen the black forest gateau over the coffee cake."

"Nick, it's not like this is a big deal," Winston told him, after staring at Schmidt for almost a minute after his strange comment. "We picked Cece, you picked Jess, it's fine. Just admit that you pick her and we'll leave you alone."

Nick regarded the two men on the sofa - one a hopelessly pathetic douchebag with an ego too big for his abs, the other always, annoyingly, right.

"Fine, I pick Jess," he admitted, exasperated. "Now can I go?"

"Of course," Winston said, gesticulating with his hand towards Nick's room. Nick nodded awkwardly once, before shuffling off into his room with his hands firmly lodged in his jean pockets.

He didn't understand how the others were so cool just picking who they'd rather sleep with out of their friends. Something he didn't understand even more was why he wasn't.


	4. The Cereal Vanished

**The Cereal Vanished**

In the early light of the morning, the dining area of the loft was always bathed in light pouring in from the windows. The sunlight combined with Jess made her three roommates feel as though living in an over the top fairytale land where a girl wearing polka dotted dresses with huge eyes offering them cupcakes for breakfast while rainbows danced on the window panes was, eventually, the norm. However, on a particularly bright summer's day when Winston and Schmidt emerged from their dark caves of rooms anticipating an in depth discussion of all things relating to ribbons over breakfast, they found their home dark. The curtains had been pulled across the windows, covering the light that usually spilt through the patched up glass - from where Nick had 'fixed' the cracks by covering them with cardboard - to create a dappled effect on the floor. What was worse, Jess was awake and allowing the loft to be in such a state of darkness. The two men could see her sitting at the table sombrely

"Jess, why is everything so dark?" Winston asked slowly, as he walked towards the kitchen area. Jess looked up at him and glared, and although she couldn't help it, she did look more like an angry bunny than she probably wanted to.

"I don't know, Winston, why _is _everything so dark?" she asked, folding her arms across her chest. Winston glanced over his shoulder at Schmidt. She was still wearing her make-up from the night before.

"I don't know. That's why I asked you first...?" he said cautiously. Jess sighed, holding her arms even tighter to the point that the men wondered if she was still breathing properly.

"Russell and I broke up,' she murmured, looking down at her arms. The guys sighed.

"Wow, Jess, I'm sorry," Winston said sympathetically, patting her on the shoulder. Then she looked up suddenly, causing Winston to jump back a little.

"It's not just that though," she said, her tone suddenly somewhat more angrily. "Nick was...occupied, last night," she said, thinking of her words carefully. "With a lady-visitor."

"What?" Schmidt laughed. "Dirty dog, I thought I heard something going on - I mean, I had assumed it was you and Russell, but that's gone in the pooper -" he was interrupted by a sharp jab to his ribcage by Winston, and his face instantly composed and fell into solemnity. "Again, so sorry about that," he said, clasping his hands in front of him like a hearse-follower.

"No, it's not good, Schmidt!" Jess hissed, looking over her shoulder. "It was Caroline!"

Winston's mouth fell into an O-shape. Schmidt's eyes bugged. "Caroline? As in _Caroline_, Caroline?"

"No way, that can't be right," Winston shook his head. "She broke him. And then burnt the pieces."

Jess nodded. "I saw her, Winston. And I could smell it."

Both men recoiled, disgusted. Jess instantly realised how weird what she'd said had sounded. "Incense! I could smell _incense_!" she assured them, hastily.

Schmidt shook his head, storming off towards Nick's room. "I'm going to break it up. Winston, bring me Theodore K. Mullins _stat_!"

"I'm on it," Winston said, following his roommate. "'In our bed, Nick? Where we rub each other with sweet, sweet perfumed oils?'" he rehearsed under his breath. Jess rolled her eyes, standing up.

"He's driving her home already, guys."

The two men stopped. "Oh. Right. Tomorrow, then," Schmidt sighed. Jess frowned.

"No," she said straightaway. "We're not going to let there be a tomorrow. As soon as he comes back, you need to make him end it."

Winston laughed. "Jess, if we could do that, we wouldn't have let him go out with her for four years."

"He doesn't care anymore," Schmidt agreed angrily. "I told him, the first time - 'don't get in too deep man, bitches be crazy' - he just didn't listen.'

Winston nodded. "I know it's a mistake. But Nick's got to know that too. To be honest, as much as I don't like it, if he's got to hit rock bottom, he got to hit rock bottom."

"He doesn't know that, guys," Jess insisted. "He looked so stupidly happy I wanted to punch him."

Schmidt shrugged, his kimono riding up just a little too high as he did so. Jess averted her eyes. "We talk sense into him when he gets back. What do you want us to do, call him while he's driving her home and tell him to crash the car just to get rid of her?"

Jess chewed her hair for a moment, before opening her mouth suddenly. "I'm not doing that, are you crazy?" Schmidt whispered before she had a chance to talk, looking afraid and his voice an octave too high. Winston sat down at the counter.

"We know it's a mistake Jess," he began. "Really, if anything, we know that better than you. You only saw Nick after _one _day with her. We saw him after _four years_."

"The things we saw..." Schmidt muttered, staring at one of the patched up windows, remembering the time that Nick got drunk and punched it so hard he shattered the glass, screaming garbled crap about how it was Caroline's face he was punching and that if he hurt his hand he wouldn't notice his the pain in his heart so much. Schmidt involuntarily shivered.

"It's bad, guys," Jess shook her head. "She stayed the night. He gave her _breakfast_, and fed it to her himself. I saw if they'd had spaghetti, they'd have reenacted_ Lady and the Tramp._"

Winston sighed. "Damn," he muttered.

"Wait, full English or continental?" Schmidt asked, his face serious.

"Just cereal."

"Cereal is good. We can handle cereal," Winston muttered, thinking hard. Schmidt nodded.

"I would have cooked her breakfast, but whatever," he mumbled, folding his arms. Jess suddenly leapt to her feet.

"Well, I'm not taking any chances," she announced, running with skittish little steps over to the cupboards. She pulled open the doors hard and grabbed every cereal box she could find.

"Jess, woah, wait, what are you doing?" Winston said, over the clanging noises Jess was making as she extracted a large metal saucepan from underneath some expensive wok Schmidt had bought and never used.

"If he makes her breakfast again, it's bad," Jess cried, throwing the boxes of cereal down onto the counter. "Breakfast after one night of sex means he wants commitment and more than a hook-up - so I'm going to eat all the breakfast food we have," she said breathlessly, slamming the milk carton down. "And I'm starting with cereal."

"Jess, are you sure this is the best idea?" Winston said cautiously, as Jess tipped the contents of the many boxes and the milk carton into the saucepan. "I mean, you know we need to eat breakfast too, right?"

Jess shoved a tablespoon of Weetabix, Lucky Charms, Cheerios and Rice Krispies into her mouth. "I'm not taking any chances," Jess mumbled, milk coating her lips as it dripped unattractively from her brimming mouth. She swallowed the cereals with gusto, and after many futile attempts at persuading her to leave at least the croissants alone - on Schmidt's part - eventually the guys just left her alone - they generally went by the rule 'let Jess do what a Jess has to do.'

Eventually the front door opened and closed. She didn't call out or anything, as she would have yesterday or any day before that - yet even so, without speaking he came and sat down next to her.

"Hey," he said, awkwardly. Jess, who had now shoved the saucepan - devoid of it's previous contents - to the other side of the counter, had moved on to snuffling up all the bagels. She turned her head towards him. She glared into his eyes for a minute, before angry biting off a hunk of doughy bread.

"Shut up," she said indistinctly. Nick frowned, looking down at his lap.

"Schmidt texted me on my way back," he said.

Jess tipped her head back, avoiding his eyes and chewing with her mouth open to disgust him. "What did he say?"

Nick made a face that was a combination of embarrassment, awkwardness and the urge to laugh. "Enough to make me want to apologise for a what an idiot I was last night."

Jess didn't think she'd understood what he meant. She swallowed the chunk of bagel, no longer glaring at him. "What?"

"I'm sorry I yelled at you. It wasn't fair," he said simply, looking up at her.

"Nick," she said, smiling slightly.

"You deserve to be angry at me, ok? It's fine, I get it. I was an idiot."

Jess' smile grew wider. "So you, uh...you understand why it was so...what's the word," she paused to laugh once, "frustrating, to see you guys together?"

Nick nodded. "Yeah, look I didn't know you and Russell had just broken up, and I'm sorry I was a jerk to you. If I'd known I would have yelled, I know it wouldn't have been nice to see a couple straight after you, er...stopped being one."

Jess froze for a moment. "You're together?" she said finally, frowning. "You and Caroline, it's official?"

Nick shrugged, grinning a little. "Well, yeah. It is. That whole dating twenty-year-old girls wasn't right for me, and -"

"Shut up," Jess spat, picking up her bagel again. "Leave me alone."

"What?" Nick exclaimed. "I thought you were forgiving me!"

"You don't get it, Nick," Jess growled through her mouth full of bagel. "So just go, call Caroline or whatever, I don't care."

Nick sighed, standing up. "Look, Jess, I apologised - deal with it. Please?"

Jess waited until she heard Nick's bedroom door close. "No," she grumbled, munching away on the bagel.

* * *

**A/N - Sorry it took so long to upload, I've just been really busy this week with New Year's and schoolwork related things. If anyone's interested, though, the next few chapters are nearly finished too, so I should be able to get at least one more up before this Sunday! **


	5. They Had to Carry Furniture

**They Had to Carry Furniture**

Nick's stuff was brought up from the van one box at a time the day after he came back. Jess enthusiastically offered to carry two boxes at a time to speed the process along, however with vehement protests from the guys she yielded. Her, Winston and Schmidt, however, all seemed to understand that however many jokes they cracked at his expense, they could not ask Nick outright why he came back.

Schmidt laughed at him cheerfully and told him he had no game, while Winston announced that Caroline had always been, in his mind, an evil bitch, and Nick deserved way better. Jess, on the other hand, made no reference whatsoever to Caroline, only chatting away at him about how heavy these boxes were, did he have a rock collection that he'd packed in them? She also didn't notice the sidelong glance Nick took at her after Winston told him he deserved better.

She and Nick were down by the truck, left on their own after the guys had ditched them. The only item left in the truck was his bed, and it would definitely take not only two people to carry, but two people working together. And working together _well _at that.

"Ok, you go this side and I'll walk backwards," Jess suggested, rubbing her sore arms from all the heavy lifting she'd done that day.

"No, Jess, going backwards up the stairs? I'll do it," Nick shook his head. Jess gave him a strange look as she walked past him to bring up the back.

"Ooh, Nick Miller, being all chivalrous," she teased. Nick grunted, looking at the floor. "Ok, let's move it," she sighed, bending down to pick it up from the base.

"Yeah," he muttered, coughing. "So, Jess, you're going to need to be my eyes for this, like if another person's behind me, tell me, and if Remy's behind me, tell me to run."

Jess laughed. "If he gets too close we can always whack him with this old thing," she patted the bed frame. Nick turtle-faced.

"Great idea, get Remy closerto my bed," he muttered. Jess pretended not to have heard him.

"Ok, you ready?"

"Let's do this," he muttered, and with that he pulled the bed up with all his might on his end. Jess immediately copied him, lifting her end of the bed up too.

They made it only the few feet it was to the doorway before Jess dropped her side. Nick felt the bed's weight suddenly increase as Jess sighed, rubbing her arms.

"You know, I think this is the only piece of furniture you have that doesn't fold up," she joked. Nick raised his eyebrows, saying nothing. "You ready?" she asked, after a moment of silence. Without waiting for her, Nick hoisted his end. Letting out a little squeak of surprise, Jess immediately copied. They stopped again when they reached the elevator.

"We could try and make it fit," Jess suggested, chewing her lip and trying to ignore the throbbing of her sore arm muscles. Nick shook his head.

"That's what I tried to do the first time I moved in," he told her.

"What happened?" Jess asked, bemused. Nick laughed.

"I'll tell you there's a reason I have to prop up one end with books," he said, glancing over at the bottom-right foot of the bed. Jess followed his eyes, and noticed for the first time that the wood there was splintered.

"Right, so stairs it is," she said immediately.

Nick picked up his end and Jess followed suit. "Do I step now?" he asked her, unable to see his feet.

"Not yet," Jess muttered, watching him. Nick shuffled his feet back a little.

"Now?"

"No..."

"Now?"

"Nick, look out!" Jess cried suddenly, as Nick tripped backwards over the first step. He landed hard on the step in a sitting down position.

"Jess, you were supposed to tell me when to step!" he groaned. Jess laughed quietly.

"Yeah, but then you went rogue on me!" she defended herself.

"Because you didn't tell me what to do!"

"You didn't wait for me to!"

Nick rolled his eyes, getting up. "Whatever, just tell me next time," he told her gruffly. Jess nodded sombrely.

They went up the first flight of stairs without speaking, apart from the occasional warning from Jess that Nick was going to put his foot too close to the edge of a step. Nick wouldn't reply to anything she was saying for a while, however not for the reason that she was thinking. He suddenly found himself listening to her, but not in the way most people listened - he could suddenly hear the timbre and resonance in her voice. He was trying not to, but the harder he tried the less he could ignore it. He could hear the concern in her voice whenever she told him to move his foot a bit further backwards, and he was remembering her quiet laughter when he'd fallen down on that first step. He'd never listened to her like this before. Then he found himself comparing her voice to Caroline's - but as he did so he realised he'd never found himself accidentally listening to her voice and not her words. Sure, he'd spaced out a couple of times when she'd been talking, but not in the same way. It was strange, he realised, that Caroline was now a past part of his life. She'd always been a presence in his mind, an open possibility, and now...

He'd always loved her, there wasn't any doubt in his mind about that. But the time he'd wasted hoping she'd call him, that she'd want to hang out sometime, now seemed like the most stupid way he'd ever spent his time - possibly not including his attempt at being a lawyer. However, he realised, those years in law school, all the tests and studying, even taking the Bar Exam, he'd taken away a pretty good understanding of the law. Not that he ever used it, but he could if he wanted to - probably. But the time he'd spent moping after Caroline? If there was anything to take away from that relationship, it was what _not _to do. He'd been so caught up in holding onto the best of the memories with her, he'd somehow omitted that shit time after he'd been dumped. He'd drunk-dialed her constantly, cried, worn her freaking clothes - if a girl had ever done that to him, he wouldn't have taken her back.

But Caroline had. And what did that say about her? Either she had really low self-worth, in which case he would have tried to help her get past that, or she was just settling for someone she knew she could have.

He blinked hard, trying to shake of the memory of how he'd thought all those things last night. He'd gone up into the apartment, and she'd been adjusting the curtains. The way she'd looked at him briefly made him wonder if he was thinking the right things about her. Sure, she probably knew she could do better than him, but even so he truly believed she cared about him. Then he'd remembered Jess' face as she told him to move out of the loft if he would make him happy, and how the word 'happy' had really made him think. He'd be happy if he moved in with Caroline, but for how long? He'd realised, seeing Jess, that he'd miss her - before then he'd only thought about growing up and leaving the crazy loft, but that was when he'd realised how much he'd miss his roommates. He hated Schmidt a lot of the time, but if the guy didn't tell him what shoes to wear on a date he'd never get even one girl back to his apartment. Winston he'd known for so long, he couldn't imagine living more than five minutes away from him and not being able to moan to him about Schmidt. Jess he hadn't even known for a year, but the thought of not living with her now seemed so wrong.

Suddenly he fell. "Nick!" Jess cried. "I didn't tell you to step!"

Nick's back hit the floor hard, the bed frame following a little way off. "Argh!" he moaned, lifting his head slightly, his face contorted with pain.

"God, are you ok?" Jess asked. "Do you want me to go get one of the guys?"

"Nah, it's fine," Nick grimaced, sitting up. He rubbed his back. "Thought there was another step," he muttered. Jess laughed nervously.

"Do you need an icepack?" she offered, her expression concerned yet undeniably happy. Nick frowned.

"Why are you smiling?" he asked. "Do you like seeing me in pain or something?"

Jess shook her head, still grinning. "No, it's not that. I just...if you had moved out, I'd have missed taking care of you."

"What?" Nick laughed, getting up. "You do not take care of me."

"Oh yeah? Who do you think washes your clothes?" she asked. Nick shrugged.

"I always figured Schmidt employed someone," he admitted, lifting one end of the bed.

"I wish he did," Jess chuckled as they began to walk again.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah, your clothes really smell if I don't, Miller," she laughed. "Step," she warned him.

"I don't think my clothes smell," Nick argued, grinning a little.

"Yeah, because I wash them."

When they finally reached their loft, both were laughing like hyenas. Jess unlocked the door for them and helped him set the bed down in his room. After making a couple of jokes about how all his room needed now was it's clutter back, she left. And Nick couldn't stop thinking about how glad he really was that he hadn't moved out.


	6. A Box was Delivered

**A Box was Delivered**

The sun was beating onto the brown sofa like a drumstick, hard and in sudden bursts when the clouds shifted. Jess was stretched out on the floor on the living room, leaning against the sofa as she leafed through _Great Expectations. _Every so often she let out a small chuckle at the Dickensian names, though her roommates weren't sure that she knew she did it. Winston was sleeping in his room, as in the heat of summer he took what he called a daily 'siesta', although the rest of North America usually just called it 'napping.' Nick and Schmidt were both out at work, a fact that Jess was grateful for - what with Schmidt being himself and Nick quietly reeling from his break-up, it was easier to just have Winston around.

A knock sounded at the front door. Jess sighed, leaning her head onto the sofa, unwilling to move in the heat. She lamely reached out an arm, willing it to reach the door. After a second of struggling, she hauled herself to her feet and plodded over to the door. She pulled the door open with all the energy she could muster, which was equivalent to to strength it took to bite candy floss. However, her eyes suddenly widened when she saw who was standing in the doorway.

"Caroline?" she said, shocked. Caroline made an awkward smile at her.

"Hey," she muttered, waving slightly - her arms were carrying a box full of what looked like junk. "Is Nick around?"

"No, he is not, and he will not be for quite some time," Jess said sternly, accidentally using overly formal words with a vaguely English accent. Caroline exhaled.

"Good. I didn't want to disturb him. I just came over to drop off a couple of his things," she explained. "Can I come in?"

"No, just give them to me," Jess said coldly, extending her arms to welcome the box into them. Caroline uncomfortably passed the box over to her.

"I know you don't like me Jess," she said suddenly. "But could I have a glass of water? I mean, it's not exactly the Arctic out there," she laughed awkwardly. Jess chewed her lip.

"I guess," she said finally, moving away to let Caroline in.

"Thanks," the other women smiled gratefully. She hurried over to the kitchen area and poured herself a drink. She took a glug as if she were parched. Jess followed her, leaning forward slightly as she walked as if trying to creep around a predator. Caroline looked at her for a moment.

"How's Nick?" she asked, rubbing drops of water onto her skin to cool it down.

"He's fine," Jess said pointedly. "What about you?"

"Same as before, I guess," she mumbled, taking the last sip of her water. "Thanks for the drink," she said quickly, walking out of the kitchen. Jess shrugged as Caroline passed her, her eyes falling onto the box.

"Why do you still have Nick's stuff?" she found herself asking. Caroling turned, following Jess' gaze to the box.

"Oh, it's just a couple of things from when we were first together," she said. "I found it when I was packing, but I forgot to give it to him when he got there because of everything that happened. He probably doesn't remember they exist."

Jess nodded, walking over to the box. She sat down on the arm of the sofa, holding her arms. "Can I ask something?" she said, looking Caroline in the eye. Caroline shifted her weight uncomfortably onto her other foot.

"Yeah, sure," she muttered.

"You did - woah, was that Nick?" Jess cut herself off, gasping as she grabbed a frame containing a photograph of a bearded man in his mid-twenties. Caroline laughed, walking over to Jess.

"Yeah, he went through a beard phase after we'd been going out a couple of years," she smiled. "It was rough kissing him at that time,"

"I can imagine," Jess chuckled. She didn't notice Caroline frowning strangely at her after hearing her words, as she was absorbed in the picture.

"Is that what you were going to ask me?" Caroline asked, shaking off Jess' comment. Jess looked up very suddenly, her eyes wide.

"No, I was, uh, going to ask...you did love him, right?" she said, cautiously. Caroline blushed slightly. She coughed before speaking.

"Yeah, I did."

"So why'd you break up with him the first time?" Jess asked, slumping her posture slightly. Caroline shrugged again.

"It seems stupid now," she told Jess.

"Yeah, so does Schmidt's idea of trying to give himself pedicures. Trust me, I'll have heard worse," she chuckled. Caroline laughed a little too, then trailed off. She ran a hand through the roots of her hair.

"I guess I thought we were holding each other back," she told Jess. "We wanted the same things but for different reasons, and at different times."

"Is that really a reason to break up with someone?" Jess asked. Caroline looked over her shoulder.

"Listen I should really be going," she said quickly. "Would you mind not telling Nick I was here?"

"I don't feel comfortable not telling him," Jess shook her head. Caroline sighed, nodding.

"Okay. Well, then...tell him I say 'hi'," she said, turning away. Jess watched her walk away. "Wait, Caroline?" she called out. Caroline turned.

"Yeah?"

Jess scurried into the kitchen and pulled a water bottle out of the fridge. She then hurried back over to where Caroline was standing. She held it out to her. "Put on sun cream too," she said quietly. Caroline smiled a little.

"Thanks," she said gratefully. She stepped out of the door, however suddenly turned around.

"I know what all you guys think of me," she started. "But just so you know I did care about Nick. And I do hope he's happy here with you."

Jess squirmed. "That's nice," she mumbled. Caroline nodded once.

"Well, bye, then."

"Bye," Jess said quickly, closing the door fast.

She leant back against the door, chewing her lips. Thinking about her unexpected encounter, she battled internally with herself over whether or not to tell Nick. After a minute she moved her thinking to the sofa. Caroline should be kept as far away from him as possible, obviously - but not telling Nick wouldn't be fair. She'd want to know, if she were Nick - and knowing Nick, he'd be angry if she didn't tell him. Scrambling to her feet, she ripped a post-it note from the pad on the countertop and scribbled down a message on it. She then carried the box of Nick's old things into his room and stuck the note onto the side of the box. Unable to stop herself, she folded the shirts lying askew on the floor into a neat pile at the bottom of his wardrobe. She left his room quietly, closing the door behind her, going into her own room. Jess laid down on her own bed, deciding that she'd follow Winston's example and take her own 'siesta,' not even thinking to question the kiss she'd put at the end of the note.

_Caroline left these for you. Your beard is funny in the picture_

_Jess x_

* * *

**A/N - Sorry to all those of you reading this that I haven't updated in so long! I just have been incredibly busy and really haven't had the time to write much, but I've planned out where the plot is going so hopefully I should be able to update again fairly soon. If anyone's interested, I'd be curious to know what you all think of Caroline (not necessarily in this story but in the actual show). Thanks for reading!**


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